Mary on a Cross
by bunnytaps
Summary: In the woods the Dolorosa died, the idea of her vanished. Reborn as the Wanderer, the right hand man of the great Orphaner Dualscar. Upon the stormy seas, she comes to terms with her past, present and what her future may hold. Dualscar put his life on the line to hide her, to spare her being tortured, enslaved. His heart couldn't bear her beauty dying, but she didn't need to know..


It was there within those woods her fate was sealed. She was a traitor to her blood, bound in oath to the violet blooded captain. Before the fire her eyes welled up with smokey tears, they rolled down her cheeks as she knew she had just damned her only son to the torments of the high-bloods. So many things were lost in those woods, but it was here her life had just begun. The Dolorosa in her virginal jade, unbound. The very chains that bound her adoptive son upon his execution, those chains belonged to her in turn. With his death she was free.

"You have done right by yourself. His blood was beneath you, your labors for those underneath your stature were fruitless. They took and took. Here you are being given an opportunity many would kill for,"

"Dualscar, I have killed for this. Do you see my hands? Do you see them! See them!" she screeched, her eyes wide, glassy. Holding her hands up in front of her face, examining them in the glow of the fire. Bits of dried neon red blood ran in the lines of her palms like haunting rivers.

"Rosa, Rosa-," in her grief she was evermore beautiful. It made him sick to feel so enthralled by her pain, to fetishize her empathy. He grabbed her by the wrists, holding them firmly, "Dolorosa, you didn't kill him. They did...we did," he felt a sting, owning his part in the demise of the late Signless, "Look at me," in response she squeezed her eyes shut, turning her head from him.

"I cannot look upon your face," she sneered, "I will fall sick in an instant,"

"Then vomit bitch, wretch and heave at my visage," he snapped and gripped her wrists tighter. Dolorosa yelped, but her eyes remained shut, "Fine. If you will not accept my help then I will leave you to rot in these woods," Dualscar released her, he truly oped she would change her mind. Despite their differences he respected her passion, her spite. She was a powerful jade-blood with a mind like a steel trap, as loving as she was venomous.

"I deserve to rot for all I have done, it would only be just," she muttered, rubbing her wrists.

"Do not say such things, between the efforts of the High-Bloods and his mutation...it was only a matter of time," Dualscar took a deep breath, trying to settle his anger "Come with me Rosa," he offered her an outstretched hand. She looked to him with wet, obsidian eyes and with a solemn bow of her head she took his hand.

"I do not enter this life lightly Orphaner,"

"No one does. Aboard my ship you will be known as the Wanderer. Under your new name you are my right hand, the trusted, the feared. No act shall be taken without your advice, as superstition seems to hold true. No one sees all that a jade-blood does. Under your careful eye, _we_ shall prosper" the Dolorosa felt her heart lift as he said we. There was a strange hope within her despite her begrudging that her new life would give her purpose, bring her some form of joy. He squeezed her hand, "Dolorosa..." he let her name linger in the air. He wasn't sure he could let her go. Erase the memory of her past and treat her as someone entirely new, give her the rebirth she needed to carry on. It was bittersweet.

"With this I am no longer Dolorosa, I take on the title the Wanderer," she stepped back from Dualscar and unfastened her cape embroidered with jade threads in ornate patterns, "It is here in these woods I have died," she cast the cloak into the fire and reached out her hand to him, "Please," he shifted uncomfortably. For a man who had committed so many unspeakable acts of violence he felt profoundly uncomfortable as he handed her his dagger.

"You do not have to watch,"

"I just think it is a pity to scar yourself further,"

"For one so coarse Orphaner, you have grown soft," she smiled and delved the dagger into her lower abdomen, it hurt less than she feared it would. Perhaps because of the sheer amount of adrenaline coursing through her veins, blood dripped from the wound down her front she removed the dagger with her teeth clenched and dropped it as droplets of jade fell to the leaf covered forest floor.

"Let's go, let's go," he couldn't bear to watch her any longer, "The crew should be in enough of a drunken stupor I can get you aboard and get that wound sewn up," he tried desperately to cloak his worry.

"I am a dead woman walking, if we make it or not doesn't concern me," Rosa smiled through the pain, part of her truly wished to die before reaching the Orphaner's vessel. Dualscar rolled his eyes scooping her up gingerly to carry her.

"Don't be so dramatic,"

"Don't be so-" she had begun to mock him, but the pain had grown, "Just...move quickly,"

It was there in the woods that she died, as she bled she was reborn. The Wanderer's journey had just begun.


End file.
